Future personified in my mother's dresses

With my two hands, 

I can part a sea of water to just barely squeeze myself through. 

I do it not only beause I need to survie the tsunami,

I do it so that I can relieve myself of the grips that the expectaions of others 

have branded me with. 

I'm used to all of the marks there, 

they are not a private affair. 

But at the moment, the publicity of them is starting to worry me. 

It is by far too late to merely apply some vitamin E oil and hope for the best.

Not even scratching them out with the claws of a Pheonix would revive the skin beneath.

While I shouldn't need to revival because I'm still alive,

but something about the feel of them irks me yet. 

They don't feel as soft as the flesh around them, 

but they're not as rough as the scab they once might have been.

With my two hands, 

I have forced myself upward from the fall that I might as well have signed up for. 

So many things that I should have and could have known by now,

but instead I learned the lessons of another path 

that never even looked like a path to begin with. 

Because of the events that I've had to witness,

cause, 

and endure, 

I have a whole new list of regrets to reflect upon and ponder.

I've found myself conjuring them at four in the morning without fail.

I see so many things ending and I can't quite see through the fog of them yet

 to see the myriad of things beginning. 

They are there, 

or rather IT.

My new start for myself exists and it is just beyond my reach.

I haven't broadened my horizons to encompass it yet,

and I'm not ready to.

My new start will be the unworn dress that I bought anyway because

it looked to be worth my stare. 

I will fight my future battles in that gown with the elegancy 

that I would portray by simply waltzing down the street with it. 

I don't expect it to hang on me the way a proper dress should,

I expect my more than sight curves to be drawn out almost right, concealing most of them.

In general,

I expect it to be a little too much like trying on dresses from my mother's closet as a child. 

None of them would fit me,

and I wasn't trying to become my mother, 

but I just wanted to see how big the shoes of my life would be 

because those were the only ones that I had been exposed to. 

My mom's dresses were a bit more like the fifties

and all I saw when I looked out the window were scarce and sheer.
Those dresses of my mother held solid color,

they had lasted from owner to owner until the strolled into the back corner of 

an old lady's closet. 

They were dainty,

but they lasted for so long.

By this point in her life, 

the point when I didn't know the difference between certain 

defining colors ,

she still wore nice dresses, and her hair still 

smelled of the hair products that she taught me to love. 

The rest of her closet was strictly for formal wear.

Before he evaporated,

my father's suits shared the home that catered to my mother's.

Madonna really did create a nice movement with teaching women 

that it was not the dress that defined them,

or the body that filled it out,

no, it was the raw mind beneath the head of thick, medium length 

silver hair that made the woman all worth while.

It wasn't until about age ten that I realized that the majority of girls 

allowed themselves to hide in those dresses, 

allowed themselves to be molded by them. 

It has now come to my understanding that I have 

a plethora of strong, elegant dresses of my own hanging in my closet.

I no longer need the special occasions to wear them, 

but as they are pleasing to my eyes,

I know that they will never matter as much as they once did.

My beginning used to be in another woman's closet,

but I will never need to share my space anymore.

I have all the gowns I will need for the era that I hold myself in. 

Human Dignity + Compassion = Peace. 

Pleasant inferno for a time.

There's a decent debate running amuck about my mind.

There's the one side that reminds me that putting myself first isn't selfish,

no matter how much it seems to be. 

The other side drilling my faith in others into the other side of my mind. 

They're both two completely adverse sides of the world and though I've made the decision,

the tennis rally persists. 

Pondering decesions that I've made without realizing they exist has 

made up the majority of my time. 

It's a migraine, but then something tells me that a rigid moral code isn't awful.

I can either have an increase in close loved ones, 

or I can just close myself off as usual.

People go on with their lives in near bliss,

while I seem to suffer to keep them there. 

To be honest, 

I'm a tad bit sick of it.

This is my time to stop caring about the apathetic,

and allow them to have the struggles they're meant to without my interference. 

I just need to know that I never mattered too much to them anyway 

and my absence is not something for me to mourn, 

but for perchance those who are meant to miss me to. 

There won't be many, 

I wouldn't expect that at all. 

But I think that there are a rare few who will look at me and get a bit sad,

because I will not permit myself to show that I care at all. 

None of it will matter in the scheming plot that time has layed out. 

The emotions of others are not my responsibility,

mine are.

The events that I've been forced to witness have hurt,

but I refuse to allow the participants to continue their actions. 

I need not explain my hasty exit, 

but it will appear as happy as I long to be afterward.

The door's right there, all I needed to do was take it, and now I finally will.

You took your door a long time ago and you checked out.

I'm sure you felt great after.

I'll take mine now and trust that it will be far better than yours. 

The bitterness that you decided to leave behind 

will be nothing compared to the content look I will force upon my face until it is genuine. 

Your control over my feelings hath gone on far too long. 

And starting from now, 

you will obliviate whether you'd like to or not. 

I left it to you to make that decision and I'm now choosing for you. 

Your existence means nothing to me. 

I am not the plan B when the plan A fire truck takes a dirty turn for the worst. 

I am the fire truck for my own disasters and you no longer count as one.

I will allow you to burn in your happiness

until you realize there's a fire and I allow the rain to fall at the same time. 

I hope that you truly enjoy the inferno, 

because I will never again be there to extinguish it. 

Human Dignity + Compassion = Peace. 

Youthful wishing.

There's a fear that's come about,

if you can call it that.

Or perhaps one could name it a sensation. 

Using either title, 

the sensation of future will dawn overhead as the grandest eclipse, 

it all fades out eventually, 

but the journey there just seems to trepidacious. 
This is, after all, the preparation for the rest of forever,

and that word init of itself is so massive and ominous.

Forever and it's iminent permanence scrawled into my skull

like an instruction manual of when to finally shut down.

And the mere knowledge of the fact that one day, 

I or even someone else will push that preciously cute red button 

and nothing I do will ever matter again.

I will be of the utmost irrelvance. 

That ballroom gown that Serefine wore will only be but so beautiful 

as it burrows into the back of your mind 

and you manage the rest of your life.

The memories will never matter because the past is going to stay back there and rot.

The pets that took indefinite residence in your backyard will stay there

as will their little lives.

I watch the youth of others end and I mourn it for them as they seem so content

with the impending end of something beautiful that will never exist again. 

As much as I wish them joy,

and in turn wish it from myself,

I have yet to know such a bitterness that is the goodbye to 

not a person exactly,

but to something that you watched from the start,

and watch to the end. 

They didn't see it,

they felt it.

It might not have been the red button,

but maybe a blue.

The button meant to teach them that this is the end of the awkward grace.

There will be no more of the locker rooms,

and there will be no more strange first kisses to be savored. 

I hope that at some point they'll be able to cherish the small portion of 

everything in their lives before they take thier fingers off that button and make this oh so final.

They start from here,

and it is a brilliant start to something great in their existences, 

but I have no choice but to see it as an end at the moment.

I can hope that they will be safe and sane in a world that is such the opposite.

I don't know how far one little bit of will can go,

or if it will ever even reach them,

but maybe it doesn't need to.

I no longer wish to keep such a thing to myself,

but I'd love for it to be passed into the atmosphere and be accepted with warm, open arms.

No hostility flickering the flame of one independent candle resembling a goodbye.

They may not need the closure, but I wouldn't mind just lighting a candle with that in mind.

The wind will blow it out,

a gust as warm as the wish itself.

And as much as I wish it were time for me to stop wishing

for all of the life that I will simply never live, 

it is not the time for those wishes to even come to fruition.

Youth is for the dreamers,

and so I do dream.

Perhaps it is but a time to change the subject matter.

Eventually, from those dreams I will awake,

as I will at some point from this one. 

Human Dignity + Compassion = Peace. 

I apologize for the foreclosure of the home that you never wanted.

I don't think about you anymore,

and I like to think that I think about you less.

But sometimes my mind trudges to the cold of where you are,

and while my environment isn't the most alluring,

you win in any pity weather contest any day. 

I still have high hopes for you,

that you stay warm even when your bones begin to stiffen.

I still hope that you grow.

But I realized recently that in order for me to grow,

I needed to care about you less.

Unfortunately for you,

I was successful.

I'm not even sure if I could go back to the way I felt about you.

I'm in a slur of judgement between thoughts of neutrality and apathy.

My goal was of course, was complete and total apathy,

but that picture doesn't look as well put-together as neutrality.

Although, to be fair,

I didn't always look like a put-together picture either. 

In fact that time you last really saw me,

I looked a mix betwixt used bandages that proved to be pointless

and wounds that only got worse because of the salt that I poured into them out of spite.

After the majority of those were healed,

I took a meticulous look into myself and saw what only I needed to see.

I caught a taste of my limits with only the tip of my tongue,

but I didn't need much else. 

I observed that I had no more room for you in my heart anymore.

The space you once occupied was healing a bit wrong,

and I accidently scratched at the scab and created a wound deeper than 

how I once tried to look into your eyes. 

But this one seems to be healing just about right. 

The scar tissue just happened to form over the love I had for you.

I'd love to apologize,

but we both know that this isn't a loss for you.

At least, 

right now it isn't.

At the moment,

you're made happy by someone other than I and I hope that continues.

And at this exact moment,

my heart and my arms no longer serve as a home for you.

My body is my home and I will no longer look for such a home in yours. 

Not even in your mind will I be drawn back into my affections.

The rampant, raging passion I once held open for you like a towel 

has finally turned repugnent. 

For once, I have taken your relevance from my mind. 

Right now, 

I am not the place for you to take solace.

I will not look for the comfort in your words.

I will not allow your words to comfort me.

Once I stopped fighting the pain and let it in,

it slowly slid out through the crack in my door,

the one I trusted to keep it at bay in the first place. 

I'm happy that I trusted it,

for I am glad that my trust was broken.

Looking at my new home,

the rooms don't look too damaged by the wreck the door crack left.

As I repair them,

I'm glad to know that you will look right past me 

and not take note of the wreck that rumaged through it at all.

The wreck was not your doing,

for this I hold no blame.

But please,

do not see this as an invitation into my deepest compassions,

because I'm saving those up for the special occassions that I will never have with you.

I have all that I need to fix the windows and seal the cracks in the drywall.

I apologize,

but your handy hands are no longer necessary to fix me.

I need fixing,

of this I am well aware.

But there's a slight ease in the knowledge that part of it is finally fixed. 

It's nice to know that in time, 

you will not longer take any more space in my life,

and soon, 

you will obliviate from my writing.

And by some form of osmosis,

from my mind. 

Human Dignity + Compassion = Peace. 

The wondrous horror of worn-in heels.

You know, 

surrounded by books and a set of keys,

I feel more like myself than I could sitting in a group of warm smiles and eyes. 

In clenched fists

I feel weaker than sobbing into a steaming mug of camomile. 

And with these tears in my eyes I will someday feel happier 

than I ever could gazing through a sunset. 

Sitting in this library of books, 

I wonder how hopeless the rest of these authors felt.

Yes, 

I'm well aware that I am not the worst that I could be right now.

I've experienced that and have no desire to look or go back. 

And as far as I have sank before,

I don't quite believe that I should consider such a feeling as this as a high.

Which reminds me,

I don't even have the slightest memory of my last one. 

I've not taken a single ailment to acheive such a high,

but I like to think that there was a point in my life when I was truly content within myself. 

A time where I didn't need as much help standing as I do now,

not that I get it even now. 

Safe buildings are just as dangerous as the gunmen that intrude upon them.

I can understand why people can be so viscious.
For it is low points such as these that I truly know that 

when the pistol is aimed at another,

they truly wish that it was aimed at themselves. 

I can understand that too. 

"I guess that's why they call it the blues" 

is the perfect observation that I wish I'd never had to make.

Everyone has their own distinct role in the lives of others,

and more and more, 

I wish that my role in my own life was the spectator. 

Or maybe I wouldn't want to view this disaster up close anyway. 

There truly is something to be said about a pair of bloody heels that one never gets rid of. 

If one were to try,

I don't believe that there would be a soul without such a sensible pair of footwear. 

I could see so many models sporting

all of the injustice that they've committed against themselves,

all encased in a mere pair of shoes. 

Pretty in pink I'm sure she was, 

but for so many reasons,

red seems so much more fitting.

The prom night gone awry the pink of it all naturally dulls to a deep red anyway 

and adding a touch of that to any ensemble will do.

The bloody red heels are my staple because the blood is in the sole. 

No one needs to see such a wondrous horror within such a pretty thing. 

No one really wants to see such a wondrous horror within such a pretty thing. 

Perhaps this horror is not meant to be seen,

and perhaps I need not be such a pretty thing at all.

Human Dignity + Compassion = Peace. 

My teenage brain as an ugly Christmas sweater

Does it make any sort of sense to fend off memories that haven't become memories yet?

I'm not too sure that I even want to continue the flow of progress that is growth.

Growth involves abandoning nearly everything that I once knew, 

and I'm not all that sure that I'm mentally prepared for that. 

I might not even supposed to be ready for something like that,

but my urge to be prepared for everything and anything

that could be thrown at me seems to be going a bit lackluster. 

I'm not prepared to leave the hallowed halls of the immature and awkward,

as I'm not ready for my  body to outgrow them just yet. 

I may not need the the training wheels on my bike anymore,

but I'm not so certain that the pillow I've hugged in my sleep since I was ten

is quite ready to meet the thrift store. 

Growing up is giving a massive chunk of yourself that you've known all your life

to the thrift store.

I wonder how many people would look at my memories and my childish mind,

pick it up with their thumb and index finger only,

give it a disgusted look because of all of the stains, 

and drop it like the ugly Christmas sweater they never wanted.

I'm not really prepared to become someone's ugly sweater yet. 

I still want to be worn to all of the family gatherings,

but never meet the boyfriend. 

I don't want to be put on a hanger in some foreign dorm room closet,

I want to be almost gingerly folded because my owner hasn't gotten the hang of it yet,

and gently tossed in a drawer. 

Knowing me and my reputation,

I'll be at the bottom of the drawer for a long time. 

But when my owner needs me, 

the part of her life that I represent will still be there,

waiting for her to step back into,

with the smell of her mother's perfume lingering slightly in the collar

because being honest,

you guys shared me way too often.

But she stepped into my sleeves as well. 

I'm sure she wasn't remotely aware of the youth that I hold in my unwinding seams,

but she gave me the part of you that you can't give yourself.

You don't wash me much,

you don't wear me much anymore. 

I suppose that the one birthday cake I've seen, 

and the icing left on the right cuff left too much of an imprint on you than it did me.

And though I said earlier that I had never exactly met the boyfriend,

I met the tears that he left behind in your eyes.

The best part of me back then was my ability to absorb.

And absorb I did.

I took in all of the tears,

and all of the nice summer days that were too peachy to forget. 

I remember the birthdays from when you opened the drawer

and chose a sweater that wasn't me. 

I still have the ability to encompass you and hang over your finger tips and knee caps.

But somehow you outgrew me without the intention to. 

I'm not even sure you know why you tote me around through all of your trips. 

I don't know why I still mean the world to you to be honest.

Don't get me wrong I love you too,

but you moved beyond me already. 

You grew. 

Still five feet and four inches tall,

and a reasonable weight,

you surpassed me.

Not the memories exactly,

those will haunt your mind for as long as you need them to plague you.

But I hope that while you can still wear me,

that I ease your heart a little more. 

Human Dignity + Compassion = Peace. 

The Christmas present to not be opened

I had been waiting for something for so long

only to realize that I can't have it.

It was almost as though I woke up on a crisp Christmas morning,

and my house was null and void. 

I was waiting for something beautiful,

but I watched it being swept up into someone else's arms. 

I suppose I shouldn't have kept the broken shards of glass.

If it's broken beyond repair that my own two hands can provide, 

then I know that I must leave it, 

for if it is meant to be repaired, 

it is the duty of another to do so.

Or perhaps once I've grown a bit

I'll look into one of the cardboard boxes in my attic 

and my hands will be large and sturdy enough to glue some things back together.

For now they stay until one day I will even sell the house,

all of its memories swept up and away as well. 

It's been a time of watching my home burn to the ground and

taking the bits of it left uncharred and moving somewhere down the street.

Eventually I'll find a different road and a different block to drift to. 

I shall start off in the rough until my house finally finishes burning down. 

I will mourn it as it is meant to be mourned, 

and I will watch those around me mock it as though it meant nothing at all to begin with. 

I will laugh with them once my tears are dry. 

Perhaps the warmth from the fire will give me more shelter than the cold 

sweeping the house ever could.

Perhaps some of that warmth will seep into me as well.

I will make peace with the warmth that nature gives me,

because it will give me more than I can give myself. 

There are forces greater than I, 

and it is not my purpose to defeat them or battle with their wants. 

I have my own wants as I have my own demons to do battle with. 

They may win some days, 

and they may flounder on the days that I decide to not let them.

There are things that I cannot do,

things that I am simply not meant to do.

And these are things that I need to make peace with. 

The presents that I never got the chance to receive were never mine to open.

The suspenders that held my back in a line are no longer necessary for me.

I no longer need some of the training wheels that I needed when I was young.

It's a learning curve that I need to peddal upwards through before I can glide down.

My knees will be bloody and my calves will ache.

But I will refuse those wheels if they are offered

because this is the time that I must lose them. 

When you get that fresh, new bike, 

it's gorgeous and you don't necessarily know how to get from point A to point B.

But the bike itself is point A,

and at some point you'll be stepping into a car for your driving test and it won't matter.

The journey is all twenty-six points that you can ever come across.

And though you don't notice the flags as you pass,

they sink back into the earth, knowledge documented for someone else to absorb too.

This is just another flag that I no longer need to analyze. 

Human Dignity + Compassion = Peace.